Finance. Fish | Books. BITS Goa | JP Morgan. Joka :D

Charlie plywood…

It is a beautiful winter morning. The scent of pine and eucalyptus fill the air. And amidst the dense wet cover of morning fog he sees the silhouette of his tonga come closer, the monotonic sound of the horse hooves penetrating the morning silence as they reach his house. The tonga is supposed to take him to the train, the train-a thousand miles away. He stands there for a moment, silently absorbing everything, trying to fill up as much life, as many memories in these few minutes as he possibly can. Its almost dawn; a new chapter about to begin, an old one about to end.

He sees her, standing in her verandah, pretending to water the tulsi plant which has clearly had more than its needed fill of water; a story left incomplete.He sees his mother, who is venting her frustration of not being able to see her son for the next one year by screaming on the household maid as she hurriedly crams as many of those laddus into the last empty bottle as she possibly can. He sees his dad, standing there, pretending to stay as solid as he possibly can. He is a man after all, and that’s what men do- stay strong. And he sees his two childhood friends, who have come to bid farewell at 5 in the morning under the pretense of helping with the luggage.

This is home. Almost everyone in the world that he holds dear is here. And today he’ll leave them all behind as he ventures into a scary world, alone. He still remembers those days, when he was a kid, and all was well with the world. Those crazy summer vacations,playing barefoot on the burning tar roads; those days when mom told stories and dad made him memorize tables(Thanks to him, it takes him less than a second to do 23 7za 161! ). Why do people have to grow up. Why do things have to change.

The last of his bags have been put in the tonga. He gives his mother a tight hug. With dad he hesitates for a moment, not wanting to break his ‘strength’, then hugs him too. The tonga rider watches in amusement as this goes on for about a minute. Finally, with moist eyes and a heavy heart he moves towards the waiting rider.

” You haven’t left anything behind have you? ” his mother asks, just as he is about to climb onto the tonga. He smiles. “Na ma, Nothing’s left behind” he says, reassuringly.

As the tonga slowly disappears into the horizon a small voice inside him whispers; Nothing—- except a bit of your heart.

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Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace!
I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.

~J.R.R Tolkien

Okay, now coming to the point where you ask me why this post has such a weird title which clearly has nothing to do with its content. Well,there is this moment when you’ve cleared your entire room, all bags are packed, all things boxed, leaving the place that has been your home for three years. And pick up your bed mattress, and you see your bed bare with the ‘Charlie plywood’ written in bold black letters, and just like that, the memories of when you first walked into the room come and hit you, like a river in all its might, and you stand there for a minute smiling like an idiot,because you don’t know what else to do.

I’m not into the whole dedication thingy, but this one’s dedicated to all my friends at BITS-I wish you’ll luck as you lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies 😀